An Analysis Of The Stream Of Consciousness Techniques In The Eye Of The Storm

Being the most accomplished and the most renowned Australian writer, Patrick White has made considerable contribution to the development of Australian literature with his ingenious experimental works. Through a rough research on his masterpiece The Eye of the Storm, this thesis attempts to look at his creative experiment on the new techniques of expression.In the general climate of the post-war period and under the influence of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and David Herbert Lawrence, Patrick White is convinced that the outer world is just fantasy and the inner world is the very truth. With this conviction, he begins to direct his gaze inward to show people's profound thoughts buried at the bottom of their soul. In addition, to fully and effectively record people's inner world, White employs a modern technique of expression—the stream of consciousness. In The Eye of the Storm, his ingenious experiment on the stream of consciousness techniques can find a good expression. This thesis tries to analyze some of the techniques White applies in The Eye of the Storm to explore the characters' inner world, namely shifts of point of view, time and space montage, free association, interior monologue and dream.White is a writer of sharp insight and extraordinary imagination. He sets him the task to explore the deeper layers of human soul and succeeds in conveying what he discovers by adopting various modern techniques.